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Bathing water quality in Wales has improved significantly over the past two decades.

It’s our job to work with government, bathing water controllers, local authorities and businesses to maintain and improve bathing water quality in Wales.

How we monitor bathing water quality

There are 104 designated bathing waters in Wales. In 2018 each one will be tested at least 6 times; immediately before and throughout the season from 15 May to 30 September. The results are used to assess compliance with the directive's standards. As 2015 was the first year that the stricter standards set in the revised directive were applied in Wales, our designated bathing waters must now achieve even tougher water quality targets.

What’s the quality of the bathing water near you?

Each bathing water is unique. To help you make an informed decision about where to swim, we have produced a detailed bathing water profile for each bathing water in Wales.

Each bathing water profile includes:

a description of the beach and surrounding area

rivers and streams feeding into the site

details about how we manage pollution at the site

Being in the water at beaches is fun but there are health risks. Health risks may be higher in waters which fail European standards.

Bathing water information for your website

The Bathing Water Widget Designer allows people to customise a live feed of water quality data for a given bathing water site, or all of the sites in a given area, and display that feed onto their website.

What are the top five things you can do to improve bathing water?

Check your home or business property is connected to the right drainage system. Wrongly connected plumbing could mean that dirty water from toilets, dishwashers and showers could be going directly into your local river or sea

If you’re a dog owner, obey the dog exclusion zones on beaches and pick up after your dog

If your property is connected to a septic tank, make sure it’s registered, check it’s working correctly and keep it maintained

Don’t drop litter, especially food waste, as it encourages birds

Get involved with local beach clean-ups. Many local and national organisations run regular beach cleans

Official statistics

The Bathing Waters classifications became an Official Statistic for Natural Resources Wales in 2016, with the publication of the ‘Bathing Waters in Wales 2015’ report. This report presents the results of the 2015 bathing water monitoring. It discusses situations at individual bathing waters which had an impact on water quality and the improvement actions that can be taken.